Key worker parents will be affected most by pausing of daily covid tests in school, says Northampton teacher

Caroline Chisholm School in Wootton has said the Government's decision to pause daily Covid tests is the 'right thing to do' but that it will affect key worker parents the most.

The daily testing of secondary school pupils and staff in England has been temporarily paused, due to concerns over the new variant.

The government accepted the recommendation from both Public Health England and NHS Test and Trace that daily testing in schools and colleges should be paused, due to the balance between the risks and benefits becoming “unclear” after the emergence of the new variant.

Prior to this, students and staff in secondary schools and colleges who were in close contact with someone who had tested positive for the virus would be tested for seven days and allowed to remain in school if the test was negative.

Vice principal at Caroline Chisholm, Gary Wakefield, said: "It is the right thing to do. It's moving at such a pace. It's the scientific evidence now, with the new variant there is that risk it could spread.

"For us in school, we won't be greatly affected because we have few numbers in, but it's more of an impact on key worker parents as they might have to stay at home with their children while they self-isolate or their children might have to stay at home alone.

"Pausing the daily testing won't make schools less safe, without a shadow of a doubt. We have still got testing in place. Having testing in schools is still a game changer, people are still feeling safe about coming back."

With the daily testing of students using Lateral Flow Tests (LFT), which provides a positive or negative Covid result within 30 minutes, it meant pupils who came into close contact with an infected person did not have to self-isolate for 10 days, instead they could take a LFT the next day and return to school if it returned negative.

The school said it will continue to test staff twice a week and the 70 secondary school students they currently have in attendance.

Mr Wakefield said: "We are doing about 35-40 tests a day. The biggest challenge will be when we reopen fully because it is when there will be 31 children in a classroom."

The vice principal said the expected return of pupils after the February half-term coupled with the mass rollout of testing will be 'quite a logistical challenge'.

He said: "When all students do come back, the mass testing will mean they will be tested twice in their first week. The only challenge of that for us, as a school, is testing 1,500 students twice - it will be quite a logistical challenge, we are planning that at the moment.

"There is a team of seven staff running the test centre now but it is expected to jump to 30 members of staff when students return.

"Like most schools we are just trying to move forward as best as we can."